U.S. markets began the day in positive territory, but gave back its gains before sinking lower this afternoon even after a Supreme Court ruling gave a lift to health care and insurance stocks.
There was continuing uneasiness about the lack of resolution to the talks between the eurozone and Greece. But the talks, which ended again without an agreement today, will continue on through the weekend in an effort to ward off bankruptcy and Greece being kicked off the euro currency system.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 0.4% lower, the S&P 500 was lower by 0.3% and the Nasdaq Composite was off by 0.2%. Sectors were generally lower, with the exception of telecommunications and healthcare, two sectors with recent superior relative strength.
The Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the Affordable Health Care Act led health care stocks higher, helping HCA Holdings Inc (NYSE:HCA), and Cleveland BioLabs, Inc. (NASDAQ:CBLI), while Mobileye NV (NYSE:MBLY) also had a good day. Those were three of today’s best stocks.
HCA Holdings Inc (HCA)
HCA stock surged 8.8% higher on 14.7 million shares after the Supreme Court ruling this morning that affirmed nationwide healthcare subsidies. A handful of other health care stocks, such as Tenant Healthcare Corp (NYSE:THC) and Community Health Systems (NYSE:CYH) also blasted more than 12% higher on strong volume as well, as the future of the Obama administration’s health care act seemed to be on more solid footing.
The Affordable Care Act has been a boon to health care companies and insurers, as the increase in revenue from more patients receiving coverage has more than offset the extra expenses involved for increased record keeping and other costs.
HCA stock is up 35% just since February.
Cleveland BioLabs, Inc. (CBLI)
CBLI stock exploded today, rising 90.5% after announcing a private sale of more than 6.4 million shares of common stock to venture capital investor David Davidovich at a price of $3.87 per share, in a total sale of nearly $25 million. CBLI was the top performing stock on Wall Street today, and traded 21.7 million shares.
Cleveland BioLabs was featured as a top performer in the under $5 category in a recent Investorplace column.
The price paid in the private sale represents a huge premium over CBLI’s closing price from Wednesday of $2.83.
Mobileye NV (MBLY)
You didn’t have to own health care stocks to prosper today. MBLY shareholders rejoiced after analysts at CLSA initiated coverage on MBLY stock, with a “buy” rating and $67 price target. MBLY was up 4.5% on the day.
CLSA predicted that Mobileye’s sales would grow 50% or more through 2020. Mobileye is an Israeli-based software developer for camera-based advanced driver assistance systems.
The National Transportation Safety Board has been asking automobile manufacturers to design more collision avoidance systems as standard on new cars, and MBLY should benefit from that push going forward.
MBLY stock has risen more than 60% over the past four months. Today’s action lifted the stock above its 200-day moving average for the first time in two years.
As of this writing, Ethan Roberts does not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
